Every traveller’s nightmare: losing all your photographs

In the old days of photography, if a precious picture (and by that I mean a print) was destroyed for some reason, you had the negatives that you could fall back on. So long as they were still intact, you could get a re-print. The advent of digital photography has changed all that. People often don’t get prints any more, safe in the knowledge that they have a digital version and can get a print at any time if they so wish.

But how safe are those treasured images? Well, it depends on how careful you are when backing up. I’m a little paranoid on this issue – the thought of losing thousands of photographs – be they from my travels or, even more so, precious photographs of family and friends fills me with dread, so I’ve always tried to ensure that I’m taking all the necessary precautions.

I have images on various machines which I then back up on to two different portable hard drives. One of those drives I store in a different location. Remember, even if you’re backing up, if everything is stored in one place, then you could still lose it all in the event of an incident such as a fire.

But what if you were simply unlucky? You had a fire, perhaps, and your backup at another location had a hard disk failure. Although unlikely, it could happen, so it’s useful to have an additional safety net. It was for this reason I decided to try out Crashplan, which offers continuous backup of all of your files as well as your photos, as I’d read a number of favourable reviews on it elsewhere.

The process of performing a backup with Crashplan is really straight forward. You simply select the folders you would like to back up, and it deals with the rest. I have the Family account which allows you to back up from as many as 10 different devices and – incredibly – you have an unlimited amount of space. All this comes for just $149.99 for the year (less if you commit to multiple years).

If you’ve any volume of data, the initial back up will take quite a while – probably days, weeks or even months (if you’re a really large amount and a slow connection!) – but thereafter any backups will focus on any new material that you add to the folders you have assigned to be backed up.

For me this is a great solution because sometimes my travel schedule means I’m not quite as diligent with my backing up as perhaps I should be or would like to be. Whilst it’s still prudent to do your own backups, with Crashplan at least it happens automatically in the background. Sure, you’ll have to wait for it to be uploaded, but with that comes the added bonus that it’s then being stored in a remote location.

Another nice feature is the app that is available free of charge. With this you can access the files you’ve backed up from your smartphone or tablet.

Have you ever stopped to think how you would feel if you lost all your photographs? It’s a horrible thought, isn’t it? I hope this provides a useful solution, and please tell me in the comments what measures you’re taking to ensure the unthinkable doesn’t happen.